Digital Detox, 5 Tech Tips on How to “Detox” Yourself from Your Smartphone in Summer

For many people, summer is a perfect time to experience a period of digital detox (literally “digital detox”), that is, a moment of pause from the smartphone and social media, perhaps to spend more time with loved ones and with the natural beauties that surround us. Even a week can be enough to feel the benefits. In this in-depth analysis we would like to provide you with 5 Tips on How to Unplug Your Smartphone in Summer which, in fact, can be applied at any time of the year to reduce the time spent on screens. As you can see, the various suggestions that we are going to give you are not arranged in random order: we have organized them in such a way that, if a suggestion does not work well in your case, you can apply the next one, moving from a more “soft” level to a more “drastic” one.

5 Tips for Digital Detox
  • 11. Rearrange your smartphone’s Home screen
  • 22. Turn off unnecessary notifications
  • 33. Use features to limit phone usage
  • 44. Uninstall social networking apps
  • 55. Activate the “black and white” mode

1. Rearrange your smartphone’s Home screen

The least drastic thing you could do to “detox” yourself from technology is simply to rearrange your smartphone’s home screen with the aim of making the apps that make you waste the most time less accessible (probably those of the main social networks). In this way, you should create a certain “friction” between you and your beloved “time-wasting apps” and, this friction, could actually help you spend less time hunched over the screen. If you want, you could replace the apps in question with some utilities (such as the Calendar, Calculator, Weather, etc. apps) and/or with some widgets that you find useful in your case (as in the example you see below).

2. Turn off unnecessary notifications

Notifications are a huge distraction that can interrupt your workflow and force you to turn your attention to your phone. To avoid this from happening, you could simply turn off unnecessary notificationsprimarily those from social networks and messaging apps. If turning off all notifications from a certain app seems too impactful as a measure, you could also decide to disable only some notifications, perhaps those from some group chats or social profiles that you don’t consider essential.

In this regard, you may also find it useful to activate the function during certain moments of the day that you want to spend away from your cell phone. Do not disturb of the phone (to do this just call the Control Center of the device or go to its settings and enable it using the appropriate switch).

If you have a iPhonefurthermore, you could activate the function Full immersionwhich was designed specifically to reduce distractions by canceling the receipt of notifications when certain conditions set by the user occur. To create your own personalized full immersion on iPhone, just go to Isettings > Full Immersionby pressing on + and defining the various desired parameters. If you want to learn more about how it works, you can consult this page on the Apple website.

3. Use features to limit phone usage

If the above tips have not had the desired effect, you might consider use features to limit phone usage available on both Android smartphones (starting from and on iPhone. These functions, in fact, allow you to set usage limits that prevent you from freely using some apps once a certain usage threshold has been exceeded.

If you want to activate the mode in question on Androidwhere it is usually called Digital Wellbeingopen the app Settings of the device, tap on Digital Wellbeing & Parental Controltouch the wording App Limits. From the section that opens, then, go and define all the restrictions that interest you.

On iPhoneinstead, go to Settings > Screen Time > App & Website Activitypress the button Enable “App and Website Activity” and then tap on the entries App Limits > Add Usage Limit. Finally, set up usage limits for app categories (e.g. Social, Leisureetc.) or specific apps (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, TikTokand so on) using the interface that appears on the screen.

4. Uninstall social networking apps

If your attachment to social media is particularly strong, during the digital detox period you intend to follow, you could also decide to uninstall social networking apps. This way, the urge to see the latest updates posted by your friends will be mitigated by the inconvenience of having to download them again, log in to your account, view the content you’re interested in, and uninstall them right after (unless you’ve already finished your digital detox).

5. Activate the “black and white” mode

If none of the advice we’ve given you has had the desired effect, there is one last strategy you could implement: activate “black and white” mode. It is well known that the bright colors of the interfaces of websites and social networks are designed to push users to be attracted to these digital tools and to spend time on them. Setting the “black and white” theme on your device could counteract your digital addiction quite effectively.

To succeed on this Androidjust go to Settings > More settings > Accessibility > Vision and activate the function that allows you to view the black and white screenkeeping in mind that the wording and the path needed to reach the section in question varies depending on the version of Android in use.

On iPhoneinstead, go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & text size > Color filtersmove on ON the switch Color filters and select the item Greyscale.